Managing Products

Managing Existing Products

Marketing strategies developed for initial product introduction almost certainly need to be revised as the product settles into the market.  While commercialization may be the last step in the new product development process it is just the beginning of managing the product.  Adjusting the product’s marketing strategy is required for many reasons including:

• Changing customer tastes
• Domestic and foreign competitors
• Economic conditions
• Technological advances

To stay on top of all possible threats the marketer must monitor all aspects of the marketing mix and make changes as needed.  Such efforts require the marketer to develop and refine the product’s marketing plan on a regular basis.  In fact, as we will discuss in a later section of this tutorial, marketing strategies change as a product moves through time leading to the concept called the Product Life Cycle (PLC).  We will see that marketers make numerous revisions to their strategy as product move through different stage of the PLC.